CNN recently launched a Qatar-funded operation in Doha and sponsored the regime-backed Doha Forum
A veteran producer at CNN now serves as a registered foreign agent for the Qatar Foundation working to “elevate and promote” the regime-led nonprofit “within U.S. media,” federal disclosures reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon show.
Monika Plocienniczak joined CNN as an associate producer in 2010, shortly after she graduated with a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. She left the network five years later to work in the public relations industry, eventually joining the New York-based firm RF Binder as a managing director in December 2023.
It was then that Plocienniczak registered as a foreign agent representing the Qatar Foundation. In her federal disclosure, which is active through October 2026, Plocienniczak says she provides “work related to media outreach and engagement to elevate and promote the public profile of Qatar Foundation within U.S. media around its three core mission areas: education, research, and community development.”
The Qatar Foundation has paid RF Binder at least $460,000 since Plocienniczak registered as its agent, according to the firm’s semi-annual statements. The most recent of those disclosures covers a six-month period ending on April 30, meaning Qatar has likely paid the firm more in the second half of 2025.
RF Binder has also filed scores of disclosures—including as recently as September—that show emails the firm sent U.S. media outlets on behalf of the Qatar Foundation. They present Qatari professors, doctors, and “businessmen” as “experts” who are available to speak on topics like “propaganda on social media in the Gulf region,” the “startup ecosystem in Doha,” “Donald Trump’s election win,” and “the Israel-Hamas conflict, Israel-Hezbollah conflict, and regional repercussions.”
Some of those “experts”—like Mehran Kamrava, a Georgetown University in Qatar professor who has accused Israel of showing a “pattern of systematic killing” in Gaza—were subsequently quoted by outlets like the Washington Post and Bloomberg. CNN featured a Qatar-endorsed “expert,” Hamad Bin Khalifa University professor Sultan Barakat, in a December 2023 segment titled “Concerns over how the Israel-Hamas war is impacting the region.” Barakat said that “Iran does not seek conflict with the United States,” but “Netanyahu does.”
The unreported disclosures shed new light on Qatar’s influence operations in the United States. While those operations are traditionally associated with higher education—it was through the Qatar Foundation that the Hamas-friendly Gulf monarchy established branch campuses of top U.S. universities in Doha throughout the 2000s—they have increasingly expanded to U.S. media outlets, with CNN emerging as Qatar’s most willing partner.
The liberal network announced an expansion to Qatar in February, establishing an office in Media City Qatar, where Qatar has provided millions of dollars to incentivize media companies to establish operations. Qatar is footing the bill for CNN’s “facilities and technical support,” which include a “purpose-built studio with custom workspaces, designed to enable dynamic content creation and collaborative, spontaneous work among the team,” the Free Beacon reported.
CNN has nonetheless maintained that the “innovative weekly show” filmed out of its Doha office and aired on CNN International is editorially independent. That show, CNN Creators, premiered last month—its first episode featured a cast of little-known CNN reporters and producers marveling at stray cats and trying on “traditional Qatari perfume” as they gallivanted through Doha’s Souq Waqif market.
CNN also signed on as a sponsor of this year’s Doha Forum, an annual Qatari confab that claims to bring together foreign leaders to discuss the Middle East and spotlight Qatar’s “well-intentioned” diplomatic efforts. Qatari prime minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani did just that during an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, who read a quote from Al Thani touting Qatar’s success in building “global clout via non-military means” and asked him to “give the world the rationalization” for hosting Hamas terrorists in Doha.
“Unfortunately, those people who are criticizing Qatar, those are the same people who are in need for countries like Qatar to have an open channel with those non-state actors,” Al Thani responded. “It doesn’t mean that we are taking one side or the other.” Amanpour did not mention that Qatar backed Hamas’s 2007 takeover of Gaza, blamed “Israel alone” for Hamas’s Oct. 7 terror attack, and funneled $1.8 billion to Hamas-run Gaza, which included providing fuel that Hamas sells to finance terrorism.
The forum’s theme, “Justice in Action,” was meant to reflect its “mission to foster meaningful dialogue,” though such dialogue does not include criticism of the Qatari regime, which is criminalized in the Gulf state.
It’s unclear if Plocienniczak played any role in CNN’s decisions to open a Doha office and sponsor the Doha Forum—neither she nor the network responded to requests for comment. RF Binder has, however, invited reporters to speak at Qatari summits in the past: In 2023, it disclosed inviting an unnamed New York Times reporter to a 2023 Qatar Foundation environmental summit.
The state-owned Qatar Foundation is synonymous with the Qatari regime. It was founded in 1995 by Qatar’s ruling emir at the time, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani. One of his three consorts, Moza bint Nasser, serves as the foundation’s chair and established Education City, the area in Doha that hosts U.S. universities.
Media City Qatar is not explicitly affiliated with the Qatar Foundation, but the two regime-controlled groups are connected. Sheikh Abdullah bin Ali Al Thani, a Qatari royal, served as vice president of education at the Qatar Foundation before becoming Media City Qatar’s chairman.
Jessica Schwalb contributed to this story.
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